Thoughts, Through Tears (Saturday Morning, June 27, 2020)

They literally are streaming down my face.  I am sobbing. And what caused this dramatic reaction?    I am looking at my computer screen, watching an Alan Alda film that my friend Joseph Turrin the composer, shared with a few days ago. 

I was blessed to work with Joe on the score of the film, which Alan wrote, directed and starred in, called A New Life.  It was released in 1988. Joe scored the film with excerpts from classical pieces, arranged and orchestrated to fit the specific scenes, and also incorporated some of his own music.  I always remembered the session because I sang a solo vocal for the “opening credits” of the film, and Alan was there in the control booth with us when I did the vocal.  He was so sweet, so charming and I had been such a fan, always of his work…to meet him in person and see that smile was a not-to-be-forgotten moment.

So this morning, I am watching the rest of the film Joe sent me by DropBox, and am looking at Alan Alda’s face, hearing his voice, seeing the light in his eyes – as he falls in love with his beautiful doctor, actress Veronica Hammel (he and his “film” wife Ann Margaret have just divorced and are finding their ways simultaneously into new relationships.) The charm of this quirky, brilliant, down-to-earth guy just overwhelmed me.

And that’s when the tears started to come. I couldn’t stop them.  I have had some very special loves in my own life, and because it has been a long life, there are more than just one or two. But there is no one with whom I have that heart connection right now, that soul/cerebral connection. There is someone who was, and still is, very special to me. Life is complicated. He is far away. But I had dreamt about him last night. 

I don’t know if the time we are in has made me more emotional, more vulnerable. I have so many blessings in my life.  I am safe here, in the middle of the storm that’s going on in the world all around and I watch from a distance.  But right now the only loving eyes I can look into that quicken my heart beat and inspire me to speak the words “I love you” are the eyes of my little dog Gracie. And if anything should happen to her, I don’t know what I would do. 

Alan Alda – is there any woman on the planet who is not in love with him? His sparkle, his sweetness, his energy, his intelligence, his spontaneous response to life – they show, no matter what role he ‘s playing. And Joe has known Alan as a friend, knows his wife and kids, and has told me what a good man he is.  That is not at all surprising, that he is a good man.  It just pours out through him.

I guess if there are tears inside, it’s good to get them out.  It sent me into the shadows, trying to figure out what exactly it is that’s breaking my heart today.  The world is filled with sad events. Brutality and lack of responsibility for their actions, from some of the police in our world. Rising up of communities, rightfully, to finally come together and protest the inequities around us.  At the same time, I am very saddened by the destruction, the looting and violence that have been part of the demonstrations, because that doesn’t accomplish anything except destroying the lives and businesses that are already on the edge of doom because of the virus shut-down. It also harms the validity of the very people who are there demonstrating.  It distracts from their purpose.

I think that today’s tears came because it’s been so long since someone I cared about looked at me the way Alan looked at his new beloved on my computer screen today.  Maybe seeing his face also brought back the “Mash” years, the seventies…the energetic, alive years.  And now, fifty years later—it’s unlikely that there will be an Alan Alda finding his way into my life.

I guess that’s what brought the tears.  I have dear friends, for whom I’m ever so very grateful, and I thought I had accepted being without a heart connection, without that special someone in my life.  But apparently my heart hasn’t, just yet.